Theory development as dramaturgy for the MA

Abstract

The full title of the lecture is: Theory development as dramaturgy for the MA—process, performance and production in the Learning Theatre. It is prepared as a backdrop for a lunch-presentation in Prorector Heidi Haraldsen’s education forum #7 (utdanningsforum #7) at KHiO (19.01.23).

The framework of the intervention is: artistic research and teaching in the MA. It seeks to tease out some performative aspects—based on experiences sampled from the MA in design, dance, theatre and art & crafts—between process and production.

It queries the push of material expression unto the materialisation of content (Hjelmslev, 1943) in dialogue with new materialism (Barad, 2007), which in these aspects may not be so new. The topic has been on the author’s plate since he discovered it in Eco’s Trattato di semiotica generale (1975)/A theory of semiotics (1976). Featuring the semiotics of invention: the connection between deep semantics, cognition and performance.

Research question: does the quality of material expression, when prompting an artistic materialisation of contents, intercept desired virtues of theory development in art and design? The downloadable elements in the left column broadly correspond with the elements that the MA-candidates submit in Theory 3/T3 (the exam).